Mog snatched Alurna into his arms and made off through the forest
The remaining five watched Mog's hurried flight until he had passed from sight. His purpose in stealing the she was clear; their surprise came only from his way of taking her—and the fact that seldom did a Hairy Man mate with a member of another race. But then Mog was a surly brute, unable to find among his own people a mate willing to endure his temper and moods.
The Neanderthal men gathered about the bodies of the five guards. Gorb, true to character, took up several of the scattered weapons and examined them closely, noting with envy that they had been fashioned with far greater skill than he possessed. He puzzled long over the bows and arrows, but his limited intelligence could make nothing of them and he finally cast them aside.
At last the five took up their march toward the distant mountains. They moved more cautiously now than before, realizing they might meet more of the hairless men.
Urb, still in the lead, noticed, a while later, that the forest was beginning to thin out. Soon he caught a glimpse of a plain marking the edge of the woods. He paused, nose searching the humid breeze.
They edged forward at a brief guttural command from their leader, until they came to open ground.
Before them, beyond level grassland, rose the gray stone walls of Sephar, looming huge and impressive in the light of early evening. White tuniced warriors lolled before broad gates leading to many stone buildings beyond.
Urb shook his head regretfully. "We must look elsewhere for caves," he said. "To make our homes near here would mean much fighting with the hairless ones. It is better to go where we may live in peace. Come."
With bowed shoulders and awkward shuffling gait the five frightful men turned back for the long journey to the distant caves of their people.
Soon they were filing silently past the five motionless bodies in the center of the trail. And through narrowed, blood-filled eyes, through a red film of hate and pain, Adbor, Sepharian warrior, watched them go, and planned a sanguinary revenge as payment for the death of his four friends and the theft of the princess Alurna, daughter of his king.
Two hours later, just as the night's first shadows fell across the path, a searching party found his unconscious body face down in the rotting vegetation of the trail. Tenderly they lifted him up, cradling the blond, blood-soaked thatch in their arms, and bore him back to the city. There, men trained and schooled in the treatment of wounds, did all they could to revive the numbed brain of a courageous warrior.
They were only partially successful. With closed eyes Adbor gasped out, in a few broken sentences, his story of death and abduction. Something of his former strength seemed to come back to him as he spoke. Raising on one elbow, his eyes now wide and staring beyond those about him, he cried out, shrill and loud:
"Give me my spear—my bow! I will follow them! I will—"
His voice broke and he fell back limply. Adbor was dead.
Above that still form men looked at one another in silence and in horror. The Hairy men! Creatures so seldom seen as to be almost mythical, but whose savage and brutal natures were known from horror tales told at many a dinner table and about many a camp fire.
Vulcar was the first to speak. "I must take word to Urim. For the last two hours he has been storming about the palace demanding he be told where Alurna is. Now, I don't know what he will say—or do...."
He shrugged. "Make preparations to send out a searching party the first thing in the morning. I will lead it."
Slowly the hawk-faced warrior set out for the palace with the message that must wither the stalwart heart of him for whom Vulcar cared above all others.
Alurna had been conscious of a bobbing, rocking sensation for some time before she opened her eyes to the world about her. For a moment she watched the procession of thick greenery at right angles to the direction in which she seemed to be moving; then sudden recollection flooded her mind and she awoke to the horror of her position.
It was then that she became aware of the hairy back beneath her and a great calloused hand clamped about her wrists.
Instinctively she attempted to struggle free; but the nightmarish brute only tightened his grip and without pausing in his loping gait turned a snarling, bestial countenance toward her. At the sight, Alurna felt her senses reel and she closed her eyes with a shudder of loathing.
Mog, satisfied his captive would remain passive, transferred his attention to the path underfoot. The hairy one was beginning to regret the decision that had cost him the companionship of his fellows. To cross, safely, the miles of jungle and forest between his present position and the caves of his tribe, would require all his strength and cunning.
Alone, armed only with club and spear, he could prove fairly easy prey to any one of many enemies. Jalok, the panther, agile and fearless and wantonly cruel; Conta, the cave bear, who fought on his hind legs; Tarlok, the leopard, beneath whose spotted hide lay such strength that by comparison Mog's stalwart thews were as nothing. And then there was Sleeza, the giant snake, whose slimy coils held the strength of ten Mogs.
Most fearsome of all, however, was Sadu, the lion, tawny of coat and shaggy of mane, whose absolute fearlessness, speed of attack and irascible temper, backed by steel sinews and mighty fangs, caused the balance of jungle folk to give him a wide berth.
Above and about the lumbering monstrosity and its still, white burden, scampered, flew, slunk and crawled the superabundant life of this green world, their voices and movements adding to the vast ocean of sound rising and falling about the ill-assorted pair.
While far behind them came Urb and the others; but the distance between was growing rapidly greater so swiftly was Mog covering the ground.
And then, with almost frightening suddenness, Dyta, the sun, disappeared from the heavens and darkness fell upon the jungle. The Neanderthal mouthed a few disapproving grunts, peered about nervously, then swung sharply to his left and forced his way through foliage to the base of a great tree.
Alurna clung fearfully to the shaggy neck as the great brute pulled himself into the lower branches. With the coming of night her fear was intensified a thousandfold; but even more than she feared Mog was her dread of the brooding jungle and its savage inhabitants. She reproached herself silently for venturing from the security of Sephar's walls. Woman-like, she blamed Jotan for everything—had he not fallen in love with the cave-girl nothing like this would have happened.
Mog paused upon a broad bough well above the ground. Placing Alurna in a sitting position here, her back against the tree's bole, he tore free a length of stout vine and bound her wrists securely behind her back.
Satisfied his prize would be helpless to escape, Mog let himself down on a branch directly under her and sought a comfortable position in which to sleep out the night.
Alurna, hemmed in by a wall of blackness which her untrained eyes were unable to penetrate, could hear the Hairy One as he settled himself. She knew there would be no sleep for her this night; she was far too frightened to think of closing her eyes for an instant.
Seconds later she was sound asleep; and though the balance of the night was made hideous with the savage voices of jungle denizens, the exhausted princess did not stir.
A rough hand shook her awake. She shrank away with a whimper of fear at sight of Mog's forbidding face a few inches from her own. The Neanderthal freed her wrists by breaking their bonds with his powerful fingers, then swung her once more to his back and slid to the ground.
Noon found them at the outskirts of the forest. Mog had pushed ahead far more quickly than he had thought possible. Alone, without allies, he feared an attack at any moment from some forest dweller. There would be no safety for him until he was safe in the caves of his tribe.
With the forest behind him, Mog trotted across the narrow ribbon of grasses to the lip of the almost vertical cliff overlooking the tree-filled valley below. A portion of the boar killed two days before was cached in one of those trees; once he and his captive were safely down the cliff they could eat without wasting time in a search for food.
But Mog began to realize it would prove no small matter to transport the girl down the abrupt incline. Indeed, it would require all his own strength and limited agility to get himself down without the added burden of a helpless she.
Then came the thought that she might be able to do so without his aid. Not ungently he lowered her to her feet and signed that she should start down. When Alurna, correctly interpreting his gesture, glanced at the hard earth so far below, she gasped aloud and drew back, trembling.
Mog, sullen and short-tempered at best, did not intend wasting time in coaxing her. Raising a bulky fist, he shook it threateningly under her nose, then once more pointed to the edge of the precipice.
Alurna could not help but feel she preferred death by falling to being mauled by this uncouth beast-man. And so, gritting her teeth and tensing her muscles to control their trembling, she lowered herself over the brink and began the tortuous descent.
Those long agonizing moments which followed were to live forever in the memory of Alurna, princess of Sephar. Slowly, inch by inch, she worked her way downward, feeling in an agony of suspense for footholds where she was confident no such holds existed. At times her entire weight was suspended by her fingers alone, while both feet searched for some projection to which her sandaled foot would cling. She knew, now, it would have been wise to have tossed her sandals down first; her bare feet would have held to the rock with more certainty—but it was too late for that.
Gradually she sank farther and farther from the lip of the escarpment. She dared not glance above or below; her gaze was glued continuously on the uneven surface over which she was passing. Her fingers were raw and bleeding by this time; but she clenched her lip between white teeth and went on.
At last the strain, both to limbs and to nerves, was nearing the breaking point. Alurna knew she could not hold on much longer; if she failed to reach the valley floor soon, she must fall the balance of the way. Then, as the desire to loose her grip, whatever the consequences, seemed too overpowering to resist, her feet came to rest on level ground.
Tired, high-pitched nerves gave way, and Alurna sank to the ground and burst into tears. Had she acted at once, she might have escaped, for Mog was still fifty feet above her.
But she was conscious only of relief from the peril just undergone; and Mog found her huddled in a pitiful heap at the very spot where her feet had first touched solid earth.
Lifting her easily to his wide back, he took up his club from where he had dropped it from above, and moved at a half-trot toward the nearby forest.
While from the depths of a tangled maze of cloaking underbrush, at the very point he was nearing, two baleful yellow eyes were fixed in unblinking attention upon him and the girl he carried!
The morning after Alurna's capture, twenty warriors were assembled in front of Sephar's palace. It was evident they awaited someone, for their eyes turned often to the great doors.
And then came Vulcar, arms laden with an assortment of weapons. Rapidly he handed them out to the twenty until each was fully armed. This done he barked out an order and the men formed into ranks, four abreast and five deep.
His hawk-like face set in stern lines, Vulcar faced them. "Warriors of Sephar," he began, "you know what has happened to the daughter of our king. You know, too, that five of your comrades died trying to save her. Most of you knew and admired Adbor. I saw Adbor die. He died while calling for his weapons, eager to take up the trail of those who had stolen the princess.
"To you goes the honor of avenging your comrades and returning the princess to her father, alive ... or dead."
As the calm voice ceased, a score of right arms shot up and a resounding shout rose from twenty throats.
"Then come," said Vulcar quietly, and turned to lead the way.
But before the men could move to follow him, a deep voice from the palace doorway bade them wait.
Clothed in the simple harness of an ordinary warrior, and fully armed, Urim descended the steps and came up to Vulcar.
"I will go with you," he said simply.
Vulcar had been afraid of this. Urim no longer was a young man; to take him along might cost Sephar a ruler, as well as its favorite daughter.
"O Urim," he said, "may I say a few words to you before we go?...
"My king, trust me and these warriors to find Alurna. They are young and fully trained. For hours they can press onward so rapidly that anyone less hardened would drop behind within an hour. To slacken their speed for one less trained might cost much precious time."
Urim, ready to override any protests, could not help but see the logic of the words. For several moments he stood with bowed head while impulse battled with good judgment.
"Take your men and go without me, my friend," he said at last, his voice unsteady. "I am an old man, and useless. I should only delay you."
He turned and strode back into the palace before the troubled Sepharian could frame a reply.
Ten minutes later the twenty and one entered the trail that led past the scene of Alurna's capture the day before.
Half an hour later another band of men filed through the western gates of Sephar and entered the mouth of the same path. There were eight in the group: Jotan, Javan and Tamar with five of the warriors who had come with them on the long journey from Ammad to Sephar. Their destination, now, was the house of Rydob, and with them was a man adept at following a spoor, however faint.
Tarlok, the leopard, crouching among the dense foliage of a thick branch above the trail, watched them pass. Soundlessly he bared glistening fangs, and his yellow eyes narrowed into twin slits of hate. Tarlok detested these two-legged creatures; but even greater was his fear of them, for his mate had fallen, a moon ago, beneath the sharp sticks of such man-things.